Golem
by Kermitfries
Summary: Damon, Stefan and Jeremy are trapped in an abandoned hospital. But they aren't the only ones there. There is something living inside the hospital, preying on idealistic tourists and lost children. Something that eats and kills everything, even the dead.


A/N: I got tired of dying in my Elder Scrolls game so…this is what happened. But I read this book. And this chick presented her characters in such a bright light that when these characters were changed, you were forced to take notice of that and immediately experience your own concern for them. After finishing that book, I was inspired to create something just a little bit as pretty as that book, but I wanted an intense fatality about it (a sense I got from the book, even though the main characters remained completely intact, including the villain. Now that is true talent.)

So --- summary-is but not really --

People die, but are they ever really in danger is what I'm asking. There is this sort of vague safety about death that perhaps only an atheist or a hardcore believer can ever properly feel. When you die, you are finished (or rotting miserably in hell). Whatever damage that could have been shoved off onto you can no longer touch you. It is that damage I'd like to address, for death is not what scares me. Also, if you know my writing, I like sex. This, however, is not a sexually motivated fic. There will be no sexy threesomes or orgies, no rapes, no forceful seductions. It isn't because I'm censoring myself (believe me, I don't know how) or because sex is an awful, nasty thing only to be used to come off as edgy (I'm looking at you Hamilton). It is because I want fear. I want the sort of fear that inspired the Shining…and every other Stephen King novel. Rape is scary and pain is horrible but fear is an entirely different entity. And it's what I want. So review, if just to tell me that I've failed miserably.

---

Jeremy felt the wall creak beneath the force of his weight before a single crack splintered outward from his body, creating intricate spider web and weakening the wall until it began to cave in. A sharp pain stabbed at the small of his back before rapidly spreading out to surely every bone in his body. Before gravity could effect him and drag him dutifully back down to the ground, Damon was there. Damon's fingers, curled like claws, encircled Jeremy's fleshy neck and squeezed.

Damon's eyes looked blood shot and his face was blotchy, his cheeks completely flushed, offsetting his usually pale complexion. And he looked pissed. His lips peeled back in an animalistic snarl, baring teeth that looked far too pointed to be anything but --

Jeremy shoved at Damon, his arms flailing, his feet kicking desperately at the ground he couldn't quite reach. His lips parted, flapping uselessly like that of an airborne fish. The edges of his vision was being viciously eaten away, blackening to a frightening degree. But then his weight must have shifted, Damon must have put too much force behind the hold, because the wall caved in with a slow, loud crack.

For the shortest of seconds, Jeremy felt himself suspended, hanging in the air before his body lurched back and he crashed to the ground. Instead of following him, the hand on his throat disappeared altogether and Jeremy sucked in air and dust savagely. The dust clung to his throat, making him cough out whatever air he managed to regain.

"Fuck-" The word was a moan, as Jeremy attempted to right himself. His mind was racing, screaming at him to get up, but when Jeremy moved, his muscles screamed a different tune. Several minutes lapsed and Jeremy, having failed to lift himself from the debris, managed to regain his breath. He realized that Damon hadn't actually followed him.

It took several more minutes for Jeremy's vision to tremble back into place. He blinked back angry tears and jerked his head up, looking wildly for Damon. Damon stood by the far wall, across the room. The lights flickered dangerously, shrouding Damon in shadows but he wasn't alone. Watching Damon was like watching a movie with bad audio. Across the room, Stefan was there - he had to be - arguing with Damon but the words were distorted. They were too low, too long and slurred all together, but Jeremy could see Stefan's mouth moving quickly, just a blur of movement. Damon didn't appear to be talking at all, but there were several intercepting sound bites that didn't belong to Stefan.

Words broke free from their argument, appearing louder than ever to Jeremy, little snippets of audio inside of his head. _Gilbert. Vampires. Infestation. Off-limits. Brother. Don't_, in particular. The word was delivered as a growled, seething mess. Jeremy couldn't tell if it was Stefan or Damon who had spat the word out, but it had been done none too kindly.

The light in the room Jeremy had fallen into flickered several more times before going out altogether. The room was large but empty, he already knew that. There must be hundreds of rooms just like this one. All were empty except for the single beds, the mattresses stained and brittle. Some of the mattresses were stained red, but most were darkened with dirt and disuse.

This had once been a hospital. An institution that the entire town relied on, not because of the medical procedures it offered, but because of the safe house it eventually became. The mental, or the unwanted, it hadn't much mattered, were all carded off to this hospital and locked away; experimented on, or forgotten, it was hard to tell which one was a better fate. There had been a riot in 1922, the halls had been littered with bodies, but that wasn't what confused the authorities. What confused the authorities were the several dozen patients found dead in their bed. These were not the forgotten patients. Their bodies were utterly empty, their skin undamaged except for the marks on their necks. They looked like they'd simply gone to sleep and died. It was unknown exactly what the riot had been about, but it ended with a fire. Very few escaped the fire - patients and doctors. Everyone had died.

This was the first time Jeremy had ever been in this hospital. It hadn't been used since the early twenties, even though the fire had been put out before it could ever actually destroy anything but human life. The building showed blatant signs of age and abuse. The walls were scorched black and weak. He was positive he would never set foot in it again if he could just get out.

Straining to hear the brothers argue, Jeremy froze. He froze because he was watching Stefan and Damon and he heard movement. Footsteps, faded and distant like they were down the hall or outside. Padding from a shoeless sole. It sounded like the noise had bled through the walls but he knew they couldn't have. These walls had been built notoriously thick to encage the sounds of the…well, encaged. He'd been watching Stefan and Damon, and they hadn't moved.

Jeremy spun around quickly and stared into the darkness of the room. He stared for several long seconds, and just when he was about to give up and turn back to the brothers, something moved again. Something appeared out of the shadows to him so quickly that he saw the blackness within the darkened room. He scrambled back at the close proximity of this thing. It was just a shade inside of a shaded room. But it was something, and it was only getting closer.

Jeremy screamed. His scream shattered the relative silence and tense whispers in the room. The shadow in the black room was on him, crawling over him, grappling with things that felt like hands and sharpened nails. Time stopped for several long seconds as all Jeremy could do was shove at this inhuman thing and try to wiggle out from beneath it. But it was everywhere. The hands were too many - or too fast - they were everywhere, rippling across Jeremy's body like water. His bitten nails scratched at the shadow and came away sticky. His foot kicked out and hit something solid but no admission of pain or effect was ever given.

Jeremy's back scraped against the fallen chunks of plaster when he was jerked from beneath that thing. He was dragged out of the darkness and into the lighted room, where he laid panting. "Jeremy?" Stefan's voice was suddenly so close. "Jeremy, are you alright?" Stefan hovered over Jeremy, peering down at him anxiously.

The alien hands had torn at Jeremy, leaving long, angry scratches across the length of his cheek and down his neck. Blood left his cheek and neck slick and red. His nails were black and wet with something that looked like his own blood, but darker. Jeremy struggled to open his eyes and take Stefan into focus. Stefan's eyes were as red as his own blood, his cheeks flushed and his face pained. Jeremy recoiled violently.

"Don't," Stefan said quickly. "Don't move. These cuts look deep." Jeremy laid still. He'd need stitches but they couldn't do that here. "You'll lose more blood if you move." The light flickered and Stefan froze.

"We gotta move." Damon returned. He looked apprehensive, a look Jeremy had never seen him wear, and one Stefan had to admit he didn't like. When Damon was apprehensive, it meant that shit was really about to hit the fan. He saved apprehension for death scenarios.

In a single, graceful motion, Damon swooped down and hurried a much less graceful Jeremy to his feet. Damon's cheeks didn't look flushed anymore. From this close, Jeremy could see his protruding veins, his inhumanly red eyes. Damon didn't seem to care, he was already ushering Jeremy toward the door.

And Jeremy wasn't protesting, until they actually reached the doorway. "No way, man," he said adamantly. "It's dark -"

"Don't be a pussy," Damon admonished but Stefan stopped him from flinging Jeremy into the hallway.

"The light's gone out," Stefan said. His tone wasn't concerned but it was tense in an unsettling way. His body, his muscles were coiled tight as if he were just waiting to spring. "We can't go out blindly into the dark.

Damon stared at Stefan. His eyebrow shot up so far it disappeared into his hair line. The look plain on his face was, _'you're kidding, right?' _As vampires, they hadn't feared the dark since they were boys; their eyes were so sharp that mere darkness hadn't existed for a very long time. The black nights hadn't seemed as black as this building right now.

Damon's eyes whipped back toward the hallway. That single doorway looked like a bottomless pit, stretching on forever and ever. He couldn't see the other side, a wall that couldn't have been more than several feet from him. He couldn't see anything.

Damon's eyes returned to Stefan and then he looked pass Stefan to the hole Jeremy had made in the wall, and the room beyond it, as empty and bottomless as the hallway appeared to be. The blackest of black he'd ever seen. Damon found himself stunned into an uneasy silence.

"Damon." Stefan's voice stabbed into Damon's silent realization, patient to anyone who didn't know Stefan. To Damon, Stefan's voice sounded thin - shrill, even; scared and apprehensive and everything Stefan was certainly not supposed to be. "Look."

And Damon did look. He looked back into that black room and he saw the blackness move. At first it was the edges, writhing like several tiny hands, only there because of how the dim light from the room caught it, but then the entire mass moved. It rolled like a wave and writhed as violently as if it were in agony.

"What?" Jeremy had abruptly been reduced to pleads. Stefan and Damon were gawking into that black void like they saw something, but Jeremy couldn't see anything. It just looked like a dark room to him. "What is it? Stefan, I don't see --"

"Shut up," Damon snapped. Jeremy obediently fell silent, his throat thick with unspoken words and dry with fear. He realized, with conviction, that it was terrifying him, seeing the uncertain fear on both Damon and Stefan's faces. Knowing what they were now, these eternal creatures of darkness - made this worst. Vampires were not supposed to be terrified of the dark. If the vampires were afraid, Jeremy definitely had a reason to be terrified.

"'And when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you,'" Stefan recited, as he gazed into the abyss that existed mere feet from them. The black tendrils inside of the dark room writhed closer, eating up whatever light they reached. They seemed to be growing, stealing bits of the frail light that existed in the room. The shadows were multiplying, leaping up the walls and elongated the corners.

--- A/N: The book I read is called City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare.

--- "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

- Fredrich Nietzsche.

(I chose it for the abyss bit, but I thought the part that I chose Stefan to leave out also suited his entire character quite nicely (especially after the last episode, where he tortured that vampire and killed him.))


End file.
